We’re due to leave on our road trip in about 3 hours time and we’re almost packed. Sort of. Mostly. Oh well! It’ll happen! I’ll be trying to blog a bit while on holidays, but I haven’t prepared or scheduled any posts for while we’re away, but I’ll have plenty to talk about when we get back.
I hope you all have a really wonderful Christmas and thanks for reading!
See you in 2010!
Myself, Hubs and Nate will be starting our road trip back to Brisbane tomorrow night and we’re excited!! This is where we’ll be for the next few days:
Once we hit Brisbane, we’ll be pretty busy leading up to Christmas, and then of course we’ll be heading to South Africa and doing something like this:
So as you can see, we have a LOT of fun to get through the next few weeks! Then it’s my 30th birthday! YAY!!! And then we’ll be attending Hubs’ brother’s wedding (double YAY!) and then flying back to Melbs for our last 5 months here before we head to Wangaratta (or to the locals, Wang!) which is here:
Looking forward to seeing so many of you soon! And some of you not soon enough!
(You can drag and zoom in and out on the maps! Go nuts!)
We have been fortunate enough to have access to a car the last few weeks (thanks to Lsl buying herself a Ute from down here, so we have to road trip it back to Brisbane starting this Friday!) so we decided to take it for a spin down to Torquay a few Saturdays ago. The weather was so lovely in the morning, that I insisted we get out of Newman for the day. The thing about Melbourne weather though, is that it seems to incorporate the surrounds as well. On our way down the sun vanished, but we were determined! (Well, I was determined. Hubs was in a making-Wifey-happy mood which suited me just fine!)
We arrived and went for a walk down the beach. It wasn’t actually as cold as I expected, and the bay water was pretty nice too.
And now for a game of “how much you think I pay?”
(Back story: My Grandpa is a bargain shopper and becomes very pleased with himself when he saves lots of money, and he likes to pose the question “how much you think I pay?” and is chuffed when we name a price WAY higher than what he paid! It’s good fun!)
So I bought this purpley-pink top from a Kathmandu sale
and I pose the question: How much you think I pay? Now, I SHOULD leave it at that and tell you the price after you guess, but I’m not that patient, so I’ll put the price right at the end of my post and you can tell me how WRONG you were in your guesses 🙂
After our walk on the beach we went and checked out the Rivers clothing store and got a few bargains there as well! (A post for another day.) While we were inside it started pouring down so we shopped until it eased off. We left and dropped our stuff off into the car and as we were doing so it started to pour down again so we ran to the cafe we had decided to eat at, but not before we got quite soaked 🙁
Full price $74.95 (who would PAY that???)
What Wifey paid: $6.95 (yes, I’m a bargain shopper too!!)
I’ve been having a little bit of fun with all the new gizmos and gadgets available on blogger (I accidentally typed blooger! Tee hee!) .com. I am particularly LOVING the new search tool (see left sidebar at the bottom) so I can check and make sure I haven’t already blogged about stuff before I start a new post. (Bad memory). Turns out the search window in the Navbar is fairly useless. Oh well. I do love my new look blog!
Plus, you can see what I’m up to with my TO DO list! Riveting, I know!
I do realise that many of my readers use Google Reader to read blogs (as I often do) but feel free to come over here and visit from time to time to check it all out. Who knows? You might want to know what I’m up to this Friday night in Brisbane!
A few weeks ago, our friend Ian came down for a visit. He’s been threatening to come down for a year and phoned us on a Wednesday to tell us he’d be here Friday night til Sunday! So we booked him in for Saturday afternoon and evening and looked forward to it with great anticipation.
About a year ago, Hubs and I went on a winery tour with our friend Nate, and one of the bottles we bought was a Verdhelo from Sticks Winery. We had been saving it for Ian’s visit as we knew that was one of his favourite varieties of wine so of course, we had to buy some cheese and bikkies to go with it!
We headed out to Hardware Lane, as Ian is our jazz buddy and there’s live jazz at Hardware Lane most nights. There are also LOTS of restaurants and way too many spruikers. Business is obviously slow EVERYWHERE as we were offered free bottles of wine, Cosmopolitans, beers and bourbon to try and convince us to dine at a number of places. We opted for a place called Pop.
It had no Pop.
The free bottle of wine was actually really nice, and about $40 on the menu, but we were right in the middle of the 2 groups playing jazz so we couldn’t really hear either of them which was disappointing. The food and service weren’t really up to scratch so we decided to look for somewhere else for dessert.
We went down to Block Place which is a neat little lane way in between the Collins Streets (little and big) and went to Caffe e Biscotti for a night cap. Hubs wanted “something different” to drink so the bartender took full advantage and made him a Frangelico, Kahlua and lime. I won’t disclose the cost, but it was a delicious drink! Ian had a liquer coffee with Cointreau and I had a port.
The drinks really were lovely but not something we could afford regularly!! We also ordered a stack of pancakes to share which were delicious, but the best thing about this place was the little jazz band outside! They were great and really added to the atmosphere of the place. The service was good and it’s somewhere I’d like to go back to try the meals. But definitely only for a special occasion.
A great night out in Melbourne!
Well it’s that time of year again. AFL Grand Final Weekend! Yee-haw! And what a season it has been for our team, St Kilda! We have only lost 2 games all season and we are up against Geelong (who have also had a cracking season) in the final tomorrow. Geelong are going in as favourites, but only just. And to be honest, I like being the underdog. But the Saints haven’t won a premiership since 1966 so it’s our turn!!
And just so you know, Hubs and I picked St Kilda as our team last year, so there was no jumping on any bandwagon for us! We are heading over to our friend’s place for a Grand Final Day BBQ, but the weather tomorrow doesn’t look so good (8-15 degrees with showers) so it might be an inside BBQ instead. Regardless, a great time will be had I’m sure.
And as an added bonus, the Broncos are playing the Storm (I hate those Melbourne players) tomorrow night as well so we’ll be watching that on the big screen somewhere too! Can’t wait!
So GO THE SAINTS!!!!!!
and
GO BRONCOS!!!!!!
Every year at Newman College, they hold a visual art competition. The theme of the competition this year was “Echoes” so Hubs did a photo composition. He spent some time practicing the execution of the photo, and then the final product took about half an hour to complete. (i.e. taking a number of different shots, changing the lighting, the positioning, the shutter speed etc.) Then on the way home from the pub one Friday night, Hubs stumbled upon some hard rubbish that the uni had discarded. There was a cabinet there with 2 glass doors intact, and Hubs decided that one of them would make a great photo frame!
Hubs had the photo enlarged to poster size and it looked amazing.
The prize of $500 is awarded at one of the fancy-pants dinners around this time of the year, so we got all dolled up (as usual) and attended. And then the winner got announced.
“And the winner is, Echoes of Them.”
And I went nuts, but Hubs had forgotten what he had titled it!
“By Hubs Hubsband.”
And then it sunk in. He was beside himself. He was in shock. And I had tears in my eyes. My goodness I was so damn proud of him.
There were 24 entries and his was chosen out of all of them, as being the best. And it was. Here’s the award-winning-photo with an award-winning photographer.
And the description that accompanied it:
“The humble couch is part of the fabric that brings us together. Each person who sits on a couch leaves an echo of themselves in the room, on the lives of those who share the couch.
The memories of those who have been before combine with the memories of those who are present in an echo of the past, present and future.
The theme of ‘echoes’ is central to the piece – the echo of the past in the photos on the wall, the ‘echo’ of the present in the man on the couch, and the echo of the future in the friends who are with him.”
*sigh*
Now Hubs is trying to decided between a “new” camera lens or a “new” laptop.
Congratulations Hubs, from a very very proud Wifey.
Durdlin passed on the “torch of crunchiness” (is that right???) and I have to blog about 7 things that make me awesome (crunchy? I don’t know…) This torch was passed to me 2 months ago and I’ve been trying to come up with a list that’s a nice blend of humour and grace – kind of like me! HA!
So here goes:
1. I can make people laugh. Generally. Even if I have to resort to fart jokes.
2. I sometimes accidently snort when I laugh (and sometimes I do it on purpose)
3. I’m fabulously employable. See?
4. I can dance to 80s and 90s music for 4 hours at the Turf Bar and know almost all the lyrics and all the dance moves to all the songs
5. I can eat ice cream with my front teeth and laugh at people watching me, saying “aaaaaaaw how can you dooooooooo thaaaat?”
6. I can wiggle my ears
7. I use stars when I’m hand-writing dot points
Nothing terribly ground-breaking but they are some of the things that make me me.
I’m supposed to pass it on to 7 more people, but how about I just let you all in on my comments and you can tell me 7 reasons you’re “crunchy” that way.
On Saturday night, Hubs and I were invited over to dinner by our friends Rohan and Miya. Hubs and Rohan study together. Miya is half Japanese, and they treated us to a Japanese dish called Shabu Shabu. And as Hubs put it “It wasn’t just a meal, it was an adventure!”
We got to cook our own fresh ingredients like carrot, cabbage, fish, tofu, spinach, spring onions and bean sprouts and noodles and “fish” them out when they were done! Then we placed them in our sauces which were ponzu sauce with spring onion, or sesame sauce (my fave!) and then onto the rice. I can still taste the yumminess of it all! And it was so healthy as well! Just boiled ingredients and tasty sauces. I wanted more and more but just couldn’t fit any more in!
We then finished off the meal with a lovely self-saucing chocolate pudding and some of my choc-dipped strawberries. It was a lovely evening with new friends and we can’t wait to go on Rohan’s Dad’s yacht some time in the near future! (Now you HAVE to take us! Ha ha ha.)
Here’s a photo from the evening – check out the awesome set-up!
And hopefully a photo of Rohan and Miya to come (cos I forgot to take one of them on the night – I was distracted by the food!!!!)
Yeah, it’s good to be a Queenslander. Especially today!! For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, I’M TALKING ABOUT THIS!!! I watched the game with an indifferent Victorian and a dirty New South Wales supporter! (There’s your shout-out DT!! You’re famous!!)
What a mish-mash of a game, but what a great record-breaking victory! I could go on and on but I’ll save my rant for another day.
GO MAROOOOOOOOOOONS!!!